Things to do in Mustafapaşa

Mustafapaşa, 20 minutes from Göreme and a short hop south of Ürgüp, was called Sinasos until the 1923 population exchange sent its Greek Orthodox residents to Greece. That history is still legible in the stonework: carved facades, lintels and doorways with neoclassical touches unlike anything in Ayvalı or Cemil, both a similar distance away.

The village is on the Blue Tour circuit, which sees fewer minibuses than the Red or Green routes. Two former Greek churches, including Agios Konstantinos-Eleni, remain open to visit, alongside a scatter of restored mansions now working as guesthouses.

It is still a lived-in place of roughly 2,000 people, not a preserved museum piece, so expect ordinary shopfronts and parked cars alongside the carved stone.